July has been an important month for deep-sea exploration: Two expeditions in the Atlantic Ocean have uncovered new forms of previously unknown marine life.

On July 3, the MAR-ECO project, part of the Census of Marine Life, completed the last leg of its survey of the waters in the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, an area between Iceland and the Azores. The team collected samples of more than 10 potentially new species, as well as species that were thought to be rare, Global Adventures reports.

Some of the strange deep-sea creatures discovered included basket stars (cousins of the starfish), swimming sea cucumbers, “living fossils” and electric blue worms. National Geographic offers photos of these mysterious new marine life forms.

Meanwhile, a team of Spanish and Canadian researchers surveying the deep waters off the coast of Newfoundland and Labrador has also discovered new marine species. While trying to protect the coral in the area—the so-called “trees of the oceans,” Giuseppe Valiante writes for Postmedia News—the researchers discovered at least two new species of coral and six sponges.

Ten new amphibians, including an orange rain frog, three poisonous frogs and three varities of “glass frog” with transparent skin were found in Colombia, also in 2009. The discoveries were made during a three-week journey to the mountainous Tacarcuna area of the Darien, near the border with Panama, by researchers from Conservation International and Ecotropica Foundation.

In 2008, a tiny new species of snake was discovered in Barbados. U.S. scientist S. Blair Hedges stumbled upon the slithery creature beneath a rock in the easternmost Caribbean island. Hedges named the snake “Leptotyphlops carlae” after his herpetologist wife, Carla Ann Hass. He thinks his discovery is the smallest that snakes get.